Re: The Bush administration, post-2004 election ...
Ok,I won`t get any deeper into that argument over US politics and who has done what.I believe that you know better than I do.
From outside it has just looked like Mr.Bush haven`t really done nothing but trying to keep US from reducing it`s CO2 emissions.
Still,I find it difficult to understand how US cannot afford to do more,let alone ratify Kyoto Protocol.
Using fission technology from the 1950s, yes. Using fission technology that the French are already using and the Japanese have been moving too -- try 200-300! These new designs re-use the countless waste already generated by existing plants. At US plants alone, there is over 100 years of fuel rods that are useless for existing designs.
Yep, I stand corrected.I did a little search about this and there clearly is some more potential in fission than I thought/knew.This issue has been quite a hot topic here in my neck of woods lately and lots of all kinds of information come and go -from anti-nuclear parties and pro-nuclear parties and it`s sometimes a little difficult to tell where the truth lies in there.
For example a former Finnish Green Party leader said in an interview I read a while ago that the uranium resources would last for only a little over 10 years if all energy would be made in fission plants.He is usually quite knowledgable person,but I also know that he is very much biased against pretty much everything
Kyoto calls for countless reductions without even considering how to do it. It also focuses on only 1 environmental issue, which severely penalizes the production capability of nations without looking at other, just as serious issues that affect other nations.
This is quite serious issue,you know...I wonder what you consider "just as serious"?
It's easy to complain about the US and China without considering their raw production capability. But the second you start looking at pollution as a factor of industry output, the US drops well below Europe while China skyrockets over.
Are you sure?If we speak of only Western Europe and leave the ex-communist countries out of this?Do you actually know it or just think so?
Also,if we think of who really is responsible for all this,then what do you think?
China may be shooting lots of CO2 to sky now,but we -the rich countries- have been doing so for over 100 years now.Don`t you think it is only fair that we lead the way and let the others follow,even if it takes a while until they are able to do it?
That industry output really isn`t any viable defence here,if you ask me.
Finland is up here in the north,we need heating most of the year,most of our industry is heavy,needing lots of energy,but still we can manage Kyoto.And I can only assure you that we aren`t any 3rd world country that can sign Kyoto without need to do anything.
As more and more production moves from the US to China, pollution will grow exponentially.
Absoluttely,no doubt about that.
The Bush administration is the first ever administration to put real money towards our future in solving the problem. No offense, but the general public is really too political and self-defeating of itself to be involved in the solution. I'll point to California as a perfect example of an utter failure of environmental policy by the public. .
From the richest nation in the world,which is also the biggest net emitter of CO2 and one of the biggest CO2 emitters per capita,I don`t think $4 billion is really that much -if nothing else is done.
Or did Bush do something else too,except talk and give this $4 billion for a research program?
(It`s a good and useful program,I`m not complaining about that.It`s just that it will have "real life" results in about ~25 years or so,from what I`ve read)
Just to put this in perspective,General Motors invested over $1billion in it`s EV-1 programme alone(yes,I know how it ended,but that`s not the point here).
Compared to cars, even coal power plants are a crapload cleaner. That's engineering fact and reality.
Aha.And how excactly do you compare cars and coal power plants?Grams per mile?
What kind of cars?
And what difference does it make?
You can`t travel to work in a coal power plant,and you can`t produce electricity for your town with a car.
But if you compare overall emissions of cars and coal power plants in USA,then I really don`t know how you justify that statement.It just plain ain`t so,period.
Transportation activities accounted for 33% of CO2 emissions for fossile fuel combustion in 2004 in the US.
~60% of this resulted from a gasoline consumption for personal vehicle use.
So,this means ~22% of all CO2 emissions from fossile fuel combustion in the US came from personal vehicles.
Fossile fuel combustion accounts for ~85% of all CO2 emissions in the US.
This means that personal vehicles are responsible for ~19% of all CO2 emissions in the US.
Here`s a pic
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/images/ES6.gif
Electricity generation represents 38% of CO2 emissions in the US.And as you can see from that picture,coal is pretty big factor there.
I didn`t find(no time,and I`m too tired) any specific % number for coal,but I`d say from that picture that it makes more than 22%(of CO2 emissions from fossile fuel combustion).
Sources:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2_human.html
and this pdf
http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/download06/06ES.pdf
(You wouldn`t believe how hard it was to find any figure for personal vehicles,everywhere it`s just "transportation",meaning all forms of transportation)
Heh,I`m trying to remember how we got into this cars vs power plants argument in the first place:1orglaugh
If my memory serves me right,the issue was about if you can solve this problem just by reducing CO2 emissions from personal vehicles in the US,or if you should do something else too.
If personal vehicles make 19% of all CO2 emissions in the US,then I suppose we can be fairly certain that it wouldn`t be enough even if all cars would turn into some sort of zero emission things tommorrow.
If you think this 19% is not reliable number,then be my quest and try to find some better info.
I can tell you it`s not easy;the site I gave you above was the only one I could find that gave any numbers at all for personal vehicles -even though I really turned the net upside down,as I`m a bit interested of this.
Now if we could not only renovate our nuclear power plants, but build new ones, while installing EMF-based filters in coal-fire power plants -- we could generate the "clean" electricity required to power electric as well as fuel-cell (home hydrogen electrolysis) vehicles. If and when that happened, the US could come damn close to being Kyoto compliant. In fact, if we did that, our biggest issue would become CO2 generation via agriculture -- namely livestock (which produces quite a bit of methane).
I`ll say this at this point even if there might have been some better places to quote.
You keep mentioning these electric vehicles.Do you mean public transportation,or do you mean electric cars?
As an electrical engineer you probably know that electric cars are quite far from being ready to replace our current vehicles.The batteries just aren`t up to it.
Here`s your chance to get rich
and help saving the world;invent a battery that will make electric cars a viable choice for internal combustion engined cars
All the auto companies have already spent several fortunes in this issue,but all it takes is a new innovation no-one has thought of before.
Biofuels aren't enough. We need to get to true low-emission and absolute zero emission vehicles. There is a lot of creation of greenhouse gases in all sorts of processing, as well as consumption. We have to eliminate both..
Most certainly they aren`t enough,if nothing else is done.But they are part of the change,and they are
realistic today.
They are much better than fossile fuels,and we can`t afford to just wait for some perfect solutions to arrive on decade x.
But we have to renovate our power grid to support the 3x power generation required to even get to fuel cells and electric vehicles. That means we must renovate our power grid *NOW*.]
Well I have already figured out that your job has something to do with US power grid,and so I can kinda understand that from your point of view this is a big issue.But I just cannot believe it`s such a bad problem if and when it`s necessary to renowate it.It`s only a matter of money,and then hard work.But nothing that can`t be done because we don`t know how to.
Not true! There are ways to remove CO2 fossil fuel plant emissions which we have today. It's greatly reduced over the direct result of ICE in cars.
No, you still get a sizable about. And the fact that power generation has to be pumped over transmission lines results in a great amount of loss as well. But still, for every amount of work an electrical engine can generate versus an ICE, the amount of emissions is 5x less because of filtration at the power planet versus ICE. Unfortunately, it also takes 5x the amount of fossil fuel.
Again, please research this. That is utterly incorrect. There are ways to trap CO2 from staying a gas and being released into the atmosphere.
Can you point me to some web source where I could learn more about cleaning CO2 emissions at power plants?This is all news to me.
I tried to find info myself,but without success.